


girls like girls

by jessamoo



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:35:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 21,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4744844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessamoo/pseuds/jessamoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a collection of f/f drabbles for the ladies of arrow</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. carrie/laurel - soulmate au

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt: "laurel/carrie soulmate au"

For as long as she could remember, Carrie had wanted a soulmate.

When she was a child, she would watch all the other parents gazing at each other and wonder why her own did not. When she told her friends her parents argued every night, they couldn’t understand. It took a little while but Carrie soon realized her parents were not soulmated. They had settled, they had not been lucky, they had had her.

The other kids would play soulmates in the school yard - they knew how because their parents had told them. When you touched your soulmate, even if you just held their hand, you would feel it. Some spark, some explosion of knowledge. Carrie did not join in, as no one had told her what would happen.

Over the years she’d wished and prayed for her soulmate. In her teens she had made more than one mistake involving romantic partners because, she had reasoned, perhaps her soulmate would not arrive in her heart straight away. Maybe for her the connection would take time. It didn’t matter that it didn’t generally work like that. She might be different.

But it had not happened. Her parents had divorced and she had become determined, more than anything, not to be like them.

But as it turns out, she became worse.

She could never find her soulmate and so she created them. She became fixated. They said she was crazy. But in actual fact she was just aching with loneliness, and she didn’t want to be.

When everything went wrong, she found a life line in the arrow, literally. He saved her. She had been in the right place at the right time and he’d saved her without even knowing who she was. That must have been fate. Finally.

And who better to track a soulmate than cupid? So she became red, and beautiful. She became love. It felt as if she was a shining heart and she knew that he’d have to come to her. He had to want her - it just made sense. She’d heard romantic soulmate stories and mundane ones, but everyone she knew - used to know - would agree that swooping in and saving her, recreating her, lending her his strength - that qualified the arrow to be her soulmate.

That’s what she clings to, even now.

Even when he’s hurt her and denied her. It was supposed to be him. It had to be somebody. Everyone belonged to someone, didn’t they? She wanted to belong to someone. She thinks maybe if she did she would know, finally, who she was supposed to be. That when she finally became soulmated, she would become the person they saw.

When she opens her eyes, she sees him walking away. There’s someone else in front of her, a woman. Gold and black.

Carrie blinks once or twice. This was his team mate. The woman in the blonde wig. Carrie sighed. She had failed to win the arrow’s heart and now she had to be gloated to by his girlfriend.

“Are you alright?” She asks, irritatingly kind considering the circumstances.

“Do you actually care?” Carrie asks and pushes herself up slowly from where she’d been knocked to the ground.

The woman shrugs. The canary - the black canary. Carrie remembered now. She’d been so focused on the arrow, the rest of them had been a blur. But she couldn’t deny that she was intrigued now. This woman was like her - well, she was on the side of the angels, but the rest of it sure fit. She fought. She seemed to care. Carrie liked that. Come to think of it, wasn’t cupid an angel too?

“I care more about the people you hurt, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for a broken heart.” says the black canary, not really sounding at all concerned now.

“I’m not broken hearted. Please.” Carrie scoffs.

The woman crouches down in front of her. “You thought he was your soulmate. It’s got to hurt a little. But if it’s any consolation a lot of women have mistakenly thought that guy was their soulmate, myself included.”

“I thought he would see me. Thought…someone would notice me if I…” She shakes her head. “Maybe I don’t even have a soulmate.” She finishes sulkily.

“That’s not true. Everyone has one, that’s like, the law of the universe - we all know that. Hell some people have more than one. For some people it’s not even romantic, right? It might be your sister or your best friend or your cat. But you’ll find them.”

Carrie doesn’t know why she’s being nice to her. Maybe she’s just talking the crazy girl down so she doesn’t do something stupid - but it’s kind of working. No one ever talked to her about it. Everyone just ignored the problem like it wasn’t real.

“What makes you think that?” Carrie asks quietly.

“You’re cupid, right?” The woman laughs, then adds a little more soberly “You’ll know. When you meet them, you’ll feel it. You’ll just feel it.”

The woman stands up and offers a hand to help her up, which Carrie gladly accepts.

Then, of course.

She feels it.


	2. "laurel/felicity + cruelty"

Laurel thinks the darkness has swallowed her. Somewhere in the echoes of her mind, she remembers something a woman in black said to her. It never comes out. She felt like her insides were stained with it, like her veins were turning to ink, like her heart was coated in sticky tar, struggling to beat against it.  
And now that’s all she saw, darkness, all around her. It had finally caught her, she thinks. And it’s surprisingly peaceful.

But then she feels something. Something so soft and gentle it scares her. She begins to come back to herself, but she struggles against it. It’s too soon. She was asleep, she was still for the first time in forever instead of drowning in the sea of her thoughts.

When she understands where she is, she doesn’t open her eyes straight away. As she floats back to consciousness she understands the softness is in fact Felicity’s hand, stroking her head. She’s whispering to her as well, but she doesn’t hear what. Just the sound of her voice is reassuring enough.

Laurel lets Felicity stroke her head, knowing she is injured, remembering the pain and the taste of blood in her mouth that brought her here.

She’s about to open her eyes, smile. She wants to, really. She wants to look into those blue eyes and be told everything is OK.

But just before she does, one tiny, fleeting thought crosses her mind. A traitorous thought.

That kind hand that had brought her back shouldn’t have done.

That it wasn’t a kindness, but a cruelty. Cruel in it’s gentility.

Then she opens her eyes.


	3. "laurel/nyssa + temptation"

Nyssa was not given to bouts of temptation. It was all rather immature. But she had met her Sara, and she had given in willingly.

That was not to happen this time. Not only because she had pledged her soul to ta-er al-sahfer, even beyond death, but because she knew better. And she had larger problems to worry about. And because if she were to give in to her desires she may lose her only friend in the world.

Also she had no idea how to approach Laurel - who was far different from her sister. There they had been bonded by mutual darkness. But laurel, for all her demons, was altogether a different creature. Unknown, dangerous. Nyssa imagined her having ‘here be dragons’ inked across the mountains of her ribs.

Not that she imagined tracing her fingers over Laurel’s ribs. Or any other part of her for that matter…at least when she could control herself that is. How maddening, she thinks. Is this how normal people feel? How on earth did they function?

Nyssa sighed as she pulled her top over her head after another day of training with Laurel. This was utterly pathetic and it would simply not stand.

“Do you want to go get some food?” Laurel’s sing song voice fills the room and Nyssa turns slowly to see her leaning on the door way, that irrepressible smile across her face. Nyssa straightened her shoulders and looked away.

“I know this great place with these chilli dogs you have got to try. It’ll blow your mind.”

“No thank you, Laurel. I…I find I am tired tonight.” Nyssa says in a clipped manner, trying not to betray how much she wanted to go with her. Distance. Surely that would work.

She tried to move through the door but Laurel stepped in front of her, blocking her path. For one brief second Nyssa considered using force to remove the obstacle, but she dismissed the idea.

“What’s up with you?” Laurel asks, her hand reaching out and taking Nyssa’s wrist. Nyssa stiffened at the contact but if Laurel noticed, she did not let go.

In fact, the slowly traced her hand down Nyssa’s bare arm to take her hand. At the concerned look in her eyes Nyssa felt like she would let her lead her anywhere.

“Nothing. As I said, I’m tired.”

Laurel quirked an eyebrow, totally unconvinced. “I have literally never known you to be tired. I mean, you’re like a machine. In a good way!” She adds quickly, noticing Nyssa’s startled expression.

“Laurel…I…” She is about to say ‘No I would not like to eat various meat based products that have no nutritional value with you. And also your skin smells like flowers and so I must leave.’

But that particular sentence doesn’t come out. Instead she grips Laurel’s hand tightly and nods. “All right.” She says quietly.

And so Laurel leads her out and doesn’t let go of her hand the whole time. Nyssa, before she understands, is raising that hand to her lips as the cold air hits them and they huddle closer.

And when Laurel smiles, a flush on her cheeks, Nyssa thinks perhaps temptation is not such a bad thing


	4. for the prompt "laurel/helena + cruelty"

Laurel had not wanted their last meeting to be this way.

The interrogation room was cold and she could see goosebumps on Helena’s arms where they rested against the table. She wants to rub her hands down them to warm them up. But those hands would eventually meet the handcuffs on Helena’s wrists. She couldn’t bring herself to feel the cold metal against the warm skin.

“I won’t apologize for the things I did.” Helena says coolly.

Laurel nods. She knew this. Helena had spiraled into a darkness that she could never crawl her way back from, even as Laurel had tried to help her. In the end the sorrows she had endured and caused had been too much.

Laurel wonders what she was like before. She had been young and in love once, until she had lost him. It had made her cold.

They were more alike in that way than she had realized. A sudden fear grips Laurel’s heart then. The darkness was in her too. She too had let the shadows into her hollow places. She didn’t want to end up in here.

“How…How did you make yourself do those things?” She asks slowly, scared to know the answer. “Was it easy? To be so cruel?”

Helena gives her a sad smile. “The world was cruel. It made me cruel in return. Don’t you know that whatever I did, it was always at the expense of myself? No. It wasn’t easy. But sometimes we punish ourselves and punish others in the process.”

Laurel thinks of the way she had poured poison down her neck. How it shaped her into what she was, hardened her and molded her. And she thinks she understands.

“You won’t.” Helena says and Laurel looks up sharply.

“What?”

“You won’t be like me.” Helena says. Laurel had never got used to how she saw her so clearly. “You’re the best of us. You’re the true hero. The hero Oliver tried to make me. It was too late for me, but it isn’t for you.”

“How do you know?” Laurel whispers, tears springing to her eyes.

“My loss forced me into someone…something I wasn’t meant to be. I think yours showed you who you already were.”

Laurel closed her eyes and let the words was other her.

She reached out and took Helena’s hand in hers.

“Thank you.”

And in those ice blue eyes she sees the flicker, the one that tells her the real Helena is in there somewhere. She hopes one day she gets to really meet her.


	5. laurel/felicity - fragile and ephemeral passion

Laurel trails her hand over Felicity’s shoulder. So lightly she’s barely touching her really. She’s afraid once she does, she will be irrevocably lost to her, that she’ll allow herself to bleed into the tiny cracks and fissures of her skin.

So delicate, that touch. So unsure. Felicity is turned away from her but just as laurel is, she is sharply, keenly aware of their proximity. All Laurel had to do was lower her fingers, a fraction of an inch. She could trace her fingers over the small scar on Felicity’s shoulder, the one she had gotten saving Sara. Laurel has the sudden urge to protect her from any harm.

But would she let her? If Laurel stepped away now, would all this burn down? Would they ever have this chance again?

No, they would not. They both knew it. This thing, this fight, this connection they had found in the shadows, was so fragile. Heartrendingly so. It would be so much easier to walk away, let it be like before. She could walk out right now. Felicity would go back to Oliver, to that torturous nothing. Laurel would go back to…what? Drink? Fighting?

She was sick of fighting.

So she lowered her hand. Her fingers pressed into Felicity’s small shoulder and she turned to look at Laurel with a shy smile. Laurel brushed a hand through that bright sunshine hair and saw Felicity closed her eyes at the contact.

And as their lips met, softly and slowly and finally, Laurel let herself fall. She felt all her fears smash around them on the ground.


	6. nyssara - my destiny is in your hands

Nyssa, for the first time she can remember, truley and deeply cares. She’s curious and careful. She watches Sara and feels like she illuminated the whole world.

She remembers the lost girl she had pulled from the ocean. She was no broken bird then - she was soaked and weighed down with the whole sea in her lungs. She was salt and blood and heavy with loss.  
Sara had blinked up at her, seemingly unimpressed. Then something deep within her had awoken. Some light came to her eyes, and all the time she was being taken care off, when the others had carried her to safety, she had not taken her eyes from Nyssa.

“I guess my life is in your hands now huh?” Sara had said croakily when Nyssa had been pressing a wet cloth to her brow to cool her. She had vague recollections of some sweet smelling soft woman doing this for her when she was small, but she had no idea whether that was a dream or not.

Nyssa had said nothing, betrayed nothing. But she thinks about how Sara had laughed at her father, how that sound had cracked Nyssa’s heart wide open, painfully and beautifully and irrevocably. And she thinks then that she would treasure that life as she had treasured nothing before.

It was a dark night, months later, an age later when she had watched Sara fight and fall for the first time. She was not so terribly hurt, but Nyssa had seen her hit the ground and felt the force of it like an earthquake shaking her roots.

She cradled her lover, her brightness, though she didn’t need it, not this time. Sara had grinned up at her worried expression after examining her bloodied arm.

“It’s not so bad.” She reassured her flippantly.

“We must get you home. See it is tended to properly. You cannot fight with an injured arm.” Nyssa swallowed her momentary fear.

Sara smiled then, widely, and put her hand to Nyssa’s cheek.

“Even now you’re still worried. You gotta know I won’t leave you. My destiny is in your hands, remember?” She teased, but there was a kindness in her voice and Nyssa knew the truth in her words.

Nyssa nods, setting her jaw against an unexpected, unwanted swell of emotion that brought tears to her eyes. But she couldn’t keep it down like all those times before.

“And mine is in yours.” She breathes. “And what beautiful hands they are.” She grabs Sara’s hands and kisses them all over, the palms, the fingers.

She thinks her destiny is woven into Sara’s fingerprints and how much she doesn’t mind.


	7. laurel/isabel: soulmate au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> laurel/isabel: soulmate au where they hate each other and when they find out they’re soulmates they’re like “where’s the fuckin’ gift receipt because I want to return this defective piece of trash”

“What have I done to deserve this?” Isabel whispers, raising her eyes to the ceiling.

“Are you sure you want to ask that?” Laurel snaps.

They are both sat in the foundry, looking like school children hauled in to the principle’s for fighting. They are as far apart as their chairs will allow, facing away from each other.

The rest of the team are stood in front of them in various states of shock and discomfort - or in Roy’s case, laughing so much he actually cried.

Oliver closed his eyes and shook his head in confusion. “I don’t…understand.” He finishes lamely and Laurel widens her eyes at him expectantly. He shrugs apologetically.

“She did something and the universe now thinks we’re…soulmates, which is quite frankly…” Isabel holds her hands up as no words can accurately express her rage at that point.

“Yeah, it’s crazy right?” Laurel asks in a falsely cheery voice. “Here was me thinking you actually be able to experience human emotion to have a soulmate. Tell me, how is that rotten, frozen husk you call a heart?”

Isabel, of course, doesn’t react. She continues to study the floor intently.

Laurel huffed. This was without a doubt the most ridiculous thing that had ever happened to her, and she spends her night running around dressed in leather and a wig. Isabel Rochev, aka one of the most awful people she’s ever met, might be her soulmate. It would be laughable if the thought didn’t make her feel sick.

“I refuse to be kept in the damp ridden basement you call your home any longer.” Isabel cries suddenly at Oliver.

“Well you tried to run me over with a car so you can sit still and be quiet, OK?” Felicity barks back and Diggle mutters something to himself under his breath.

“Do you think he actually lives here?” Laurel asks seriously.

“Everyone shut up!” Oliver cries. “This is not helping. You -” He points to Isabel who looks at his finger disdainfully. “Are staying put. And so are you.” He says to Laurel. “And you are going to talk this out.”

Both of them start at once. “You cannot be serious!” and “You’re insane if you think - ” but Oliver ignores them both. He simply jumps up and begins walking away. Felicity and Diggle at least have the decency to feel bad and give Laurel a reassuring smile. Roy looked put out that he would miss this particular train wreck.

When both of them are left alone it somehow becomes even worse.

Every time one of them glances at the other they quickly looks away when they are caught and neither of them speak for a solid five minutes.

Eventually Laurel sighs and gets up to pace around. Isabel has barely moved. It’s almost frightening, the way she was so still. And calming in a way, not that Laurel would ever admit that.

“Look, if we talk about this maybe we could fix it.” Laurel eventually relents after watching Isabel inspect her nails for far too long.

Isabel sighs as if she’s just asked her to try do the salmon ladder, but she looks at Laurel. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

And neither of them speak again for another minute.

“Let’s go over it again.” Laurel tries.

She thinks then. Really thinks, not just about the events of the day. She thinks how achingly sad she had been when people she thought would be her soulmates turned out not to be. She remembers waking up, the day after she had given her virginity to Oliver, and knowing deep inside somewhere that he wasn’t the one. She’d thought it had been the worst thing to happen to her. She’d been so wrong, so naive. She thinks about how jealous she’d been that he of all people found his soulmate before she did. It was unfair of her, because she adored Felicity, but it still smarted, after everything he had done to her.

Then Isabel Rochev had rocked up in six inch heels and inspired real hatred in her heart. And they called Helena his psycho ex girlfriend. What the hell did that make Isabel?

Then Isabel had punched her in the face and they had, apparently, been soulmated.

What the hell.

“Maybe my soulmate was near and you just intercepted the energies.” Isabel shrugs, annoyingly calm. Laurel knew that inside she was probably screaming from the way her eyes narrowed.

“With what? My face? You hit me. You made the first move.” Laurel accuses.

“Well maybe if I punch you again it will reverse this!” Isabel cries, jumping out of her seat.

They stand facing each other, breathing hard. In a normal situation this would be the moment they fight to the death or jump into each other’s arms. But this was not a normal situation.

“You know what? I’m going to find my actual soulmate. Or slit my wrists, whichever comes first.” Isabel gives her a fake but maniacal grin before strutting toward the exit.

“Oliver said to stay here.” Laurel calls after her, exasperated.

“Then go tell dad on me, I don’t care.” Isabel calls without turning around.

It’s freezing when Laurel gets outside. She’s ready to run after Isabel and beat the soulmate out of her, but she is surprised to turn and see Isabel leaning against the wall, her shoulders hunched. She looks…sad.

“I thought you were going to find another soulmate.” Laurel asks, trying to make her voice light. Isabel just shoots her a disparaging look.

“We both know that’s not how it works.” Isabel says darkly. “For whatever reason, we’re stuck with each other.”

Laurel leans against the wall, their arms touching. “Some people find more than one soulmate.”

“Yeah, but that usually involves death or unspecified maiming and injury. Hey, wanna give that a try?” Isabel quips brightly. When Laurel doesn’t dignify it with a response Isabel sighs deeply. Laurel physically feels it.

“I just…Didn’t think I had a soulmate. I didn’t want one. After Robert…I simply gave up on the idea. And really it was working quite well for me. I got a lot done.” She says flippantly.

Laurel can’t help but grin. “You mean like Oliver?” She nudges Isabel who rolls her eyes, which Laurel guesses is the nearest to a real smile that Isabel is actually capable of.

“Well we’ve all made that unfortunate decision, haven’t we?” She looks at Laurel pointedly.

Laurel laughs. “That’s true. And don’t get me wrong when I say this because I love him, very deeply. But he has made some awful life choices. Not a bad as yours, but still the wrong end of the spectrum. And he’s happy. He found his soulmate. Maybe we can learn how to do that too.”

They both pause and ponder this for a moment before catching each others eye. They both burst out laughing. They can’t stop, Isabel actually sheds a single glistening tear.

Laurel shakes her head. “Ok, so that might be outside of the realm of possibility even for me.”

Isabel looks at her for a long moment. “You know…” She says quietly. “There is the possibility for a life time of hate sex.” She whispers, her eyes glittering.

Laurel smiles slowly. She pushes up from the wall.

“Who’s place is closest?”


	8. laurel/felicity + trapped in a closet

Felicity takes a tentative step forward, wishing she hadn’t worn high heels - but in her defense she hadn’t exactly known she was going to end up creeping around in a basement, trying to avoid assassins.

Considering her job, though, maybe she should have guessed.

She can’t hear anyone around in the large, dark space, but there are crates and boxes as tall as her everywhere and she doesn’t feel entirely sure that bad guys aren’t lurking behind them, waiting to jump out at her like something out of scooby doo.

Maybe being alone was a blessing right now. She would almost welcome a bad guy over Laurel’s meaningful glowers. Oliver’s famous mood swings she could handle, mostly because she never had time for them and she was also used to it after the last few years. He also avoided you once he’d argued it out. Laurel, when she was in a mood, didn’t avoid anything. She made sure you knew she was mad at you at every opportunity. She would stare and raise her perfectly shaped brows whilst making passive aggressive comments.

This is something Felicity does too, but she’s decided she’ll stop now she knows how annoying it is.

To make matters worse no one else knows why Laurel and Felicity are in a fight. It is their secret, her secret and one she intends to bury as deep as she can underneath all the other stuff she’s repressed over the years.

I mean, she thought to herself angrily, a kiss is just a kiss.

Except, you know, when it totally isn’t.

So what if she’d kissed Laurel and run away. They have all kissed people they shouldn’t have. So what if she couldn’t stop staring at Laurel on the salmon ladder. It didn’t matter. It didn’t mean anything. She was just rebounding from Oliver in a very unexpected direction.

And Laurel is determined that they talk about it like reasonable people. Well Felicity hated being reasonable. She was going to be perfectly unreasonable and be happy.

That was of course if they all managed to get out of here alive.

At that moment Laurel bursts round a corner, followed by very loud shouts and heavy footsteps that are getting closer and closer.

“Run!” She shouts, shooting past Felicity.

“Run where?” Felicity yells back.

Laurel sighs loudly and comes back, quickly grabbing her hand and pulling her along with her.

They run quickly and Felicity is sure there is no way out. Laurel stops suddenly and she bumps straight into her.

Flushing she steps back quickly, too quickly and Laurel notices. Felicity can’t see her eyebrows under that mask but she can feel the condescending raise.

“Why have we stopped?” Felicity breathes.

Laurel peers around and bites her lip. “I don’t know the way out from here. We’re going to have to wait till we can find a clear path. Come on.”

She pushes at Felicity shoulders before any protest can be made and shoves her through a door that Felicity hadn’t seen before.

The space is a tiny room lined with old wooden shelves that look like they are about to collapse.

“This is your plan?” Felicity hisses as Laurel presses her ear to the now closed door. “Hiding in a closet?”

“What’s the matter? Thought you had no problem with hiding in closets. Metaphorical ones, anyway?” Laurel quips in a low voice.

Felicity rolls her eyes. “That’s what your going with? How original. Look this is stupid, if we just -” She tries to reach round Laurel to grab the door handle But Laurel steps easily in front of her, barring her way.

“What’s wrong? Don’t like being so close to me?” She whispers. Felicity doesn’t think it’s because of the bad guys outside.

No, she thinks to herself. It’s the opposite.

Felicity knew why she felt so nervous around Laurel, why she was always keenly aware of her. Why she thought about her so much. The problem wasn’t that it was Laurel per say. The fact was she didn’t want to feel those kind of things for someone so soon after her and Oliver had put their almost relationship and indefinite hold. And to feel…feelings for someone she had to work with? She had been down that road several times and it hadn’t ended well.

Why couldn’t Laurel just let it go? Why was she determined to humiliate her?

“Fine.” Felicity says. “Fine. Judging by the noise we aren’t going anywhere soon, so lets settle this by saying there is nothing to settle.”

“Yes there is!” Laurel cries before remembering they had to be quiet. She steps even closer, impossibly. “You…we kissed. Now unless you go round kissing all your friends like that I say we have something to talk about.”

Felicity jumps as Laurel takes her hand. The closet is dark but she can see her eyes shining.

“Why did you kiss me?” Laurel asks and her voice is gentle, almost afraid. Felicity swallows her own fear.

“I…I was lonely and I…” She shakes her head, stammering. She closes her eyes. “I wanted to. It was the only way I knew to try and show you…how I feel. How I've been feeling. How…how when I’m with you I don’t feel so alone. So…unwanted.”

Laurel shifts - it only takes the slightest movement for her body to be pressed against Felicity’s. She’s warm and real and alive, and Felicity wants to sink into her.

Laurel’s hands take hold of her face gently, and even in heels Felicity feels herself looking up at her slightly. It’s not a bad site.

“If you hadn’t have run away the first time, I could have told you i feel exactly the same way. Felicity Smoak, you have to know that you will absolutely never be unwanted.”

Felicity closes her eyes and lets her hands move to Laurel’s waist where they fit perfectly. Laurel lowers her face when -

“Uh…”

Both women jump and look around.

“You guys know comms are still on right?” Roy’s voice asks, always impressively neutral.

Felicity closes her eyes and shakes her head but she can’t help but smile. Of course they were.

“It’s safe, we’re going to come and get you.” Oliver’s voice adds, distant and controlled.

“Give us ten minutes?” Laurel asks, only half teasing and they both laugh at the groans they get in reply.

Laurel shrugs, and this time it is her that kisses first. And neither of them run.


	9. laurel sparring with nyssa

Laurel hit the ground with an oomph.

Again.

She had been excited about training with Nyssa again. She at least thought she was getting better - she wanted to get better. She watched Nyssa fight, graceful, turning this way and that. Beautiful and deadly. Laurel wanted that sense of effortlessness.

But she was learning the hard way that it was not effortless at all.

Nyssa was hardened and quick because she had been made that way. It was sad, in a way. But now that legacey of pain could become something good. It was a story being passed blow by blow to Laurel and it was now part of her survival, rather than Nyssa’s past. It makes it easier somehow, all of it, to take the pain. She imagines all that hurt flowing into her through Nyssa’s skin and sweat and blood.

“Get up.” Nyssa barks.

Laurel sighs and pushes herself up on her elbow. “Were you this hard on Sara?”

Nyssa raises a brow and stares down at her imperiously. Laurel sighs and gets up, her muscles sluggish and aching.

“Sara knew how to fight. She just needed refining. When I began to teach her, she fought for her life, like an animal. You on the other hand simply have to focus. You’ll get there quicker because you are not unlearning something.”

Aren’t I? Laurel thinks. Aren’t I unlearning every bad thing I’ve ever thought about myself? Telling my self I can be better?

She rolls her muscles and cricks her neck, raising her arms in a fighting stance. Annoyingly, humiliatingly, Nyssa smirks.

Laurel sags and blows out a frustrated breath, turning away from her.

She doesn’t hear Nyssa approach, so when she feels her body pressed up against hers she jumps.

“What- what are you-” She splutters, awkwardly turning and spinning to try and face Nyssa.

When she does Nyssa’s face is serious and there’s barely an inch between them. “Your stance is all wrong. Remember what I taught you.” She says slowly, quietly.

Laurel’s legs feel weak. She is flooded with heat and she feels that swooping feeling in her stomach - the kind she shouldn’t be feeling for her dead sisters weirdo girlfriend. No matter how much that weirdo’s eyes are shining, and how her lips are parted and -

“Whoa!” Laurel yelps as she looses her balance.

She lands hard on the floor again, her mouth open in total shock as she once again looks up at a laughing Nyssa. “What the hell?” She thunders, blushing.

“Never underestimate your opponent. And don’t get distracted!” Nyssa calls in a sing song voice - or at least as light a voice as Nyssa seems capable of.

Laurel is suddenly choking with rage. As Nyssa spins away from her she shoots her leg out and hooks it round Nyssa’s.

Nyssa falls back and hits the floor with a gasp. Laurel grins - it’s the first time she’s seen Nyssa surprised, and the first time she’s beaten her.

“What was that you were saying?” Laurel laughs.

Suddenly both of them can’t control themselves. They’re giggling and rolling round, bumping their bare arms together happily.

Their laughter dies out slowly but their smiles remain. Laurel wonders, a little meanly, how Nyssa’s face can stand being contorted into this new position. She likes it though, so she nudges her softly.

Nyssa moves her head closer to Laurel’s and glances away, down at their hands which lay next to each other on the mat.

Laurel entwines her fingers with Nyssa’s, making Nyssa glance up at her again. She looks hesitant.

“Laurel.” She sighs. Her grip on Laurel’s fingers loosen like she wants to let go - but she doesn’t. Laurel takes this as a good sign. “I don’t know that I am ready…since Sara I have not thought to…be with-” She shakes her head and flushes prettily.

Laurel shakes her head, stopping her. She knows what she wants to say and how difficult this kind of thing was for her. “It’s ok.” She soothes. “How about this? We fight, and we fight until you’re ready to do…something else.”

Nyssa nods and smiles gratefully. “Thank you.” She whispers.

In reply Laurel lifts their hands. She kisses Nyssa’s knuckles, her pale wrist, the freckles on her arm that Laurel hadn’t noticed before.

Nyssa lets out a sigh, eyes closed, like she’s sinking into that touch before fluttering her eyes open and setting her jaw.

“Let’s fight.”


	10. helena teaching laurel to ride a motorcycle

“Wow.” Helena says unhelpfully as she watches Laurel’s feeble attempts to get the bike to move. “Finally something you’re useless at.”

Laurel shrugs. “Sara was the biker girl, not me.”

She tries to move again and the bike sputters an inch forward and nearly throws her off when it stops. Helena was on temporary probation of sorts - she’d been allowed to join team arrow as long as she behaved. Laurel had even voted to let her stay. Now as she stood staring, her hip cocked and arms crossed, Laurel regretted her decision immensely.

“This stupid thing is determined not to start.” Laurel huffs, sitting back on the bike.

She doesn’t see Helena rolling her eyes but she feels it and blushes. It hadn’t been the easiest thing after all, adjusting to Helena’s presence on the team. Here was yet another of Oliver’s exes and a damn untrustworthy one at that. Laurel wasn’t jealous over Oliver anymore of course, he was happy with Felicity. But that didn’t mean it didn’t smart a little when Helena insisted on dragging up the past. She would always look pointedly at Laurel as if she was trying to tell her something, but Laurel was yet to figure out what.

“Come here. Your'e handling her wrong.” Helena says, coming up close behind Laurel.

“Her?”

“Yes, of course her.” Helena says quietly, slowly. Laurel feels her pressed against her now, but doesn’t dare turn her head.

“You have to treat her as gently as you would a woman.” Helena carries on. She stretches her hand out over Laurel’s and squeezes their fingers round the handle of the bike. Her cheek is touching Laurel’s, she’s that close.

“Don’t just man handle her.” Helena grins, sliding onto the bike behind Laurel.

Laurel swallows, her heart beating heavy as Helena’s arms encircle her to grip the handles. Her legs press against Laurel’s too and Laurel has to stop herself from leaning back into the curve of Helena’s body.

“Be slow, and soft. And she’ll respond.” Helena whispers in her ear.

Laurel jumps as the motorbike roars to life again and they begin to move. She can feel Helena laughing behind her and starts to grin herself. This was fun, really, once she had started to move. She understood now. The danger, the excitement - And not just at the bike.

She feels Helena, through the wind and rushing of the world, her face turned slightly to Laurel. She wonders now if this was what she was trying to tell her. All those snide remarks about Laurel’s love life. Maybe she’d just wanted to be included in it.

Laurel pushes the bike a little faster at the prospect, smiling.


	11. laurel/carrie + hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> laurel/carrie + prompt: i only took you hostage because you’re hot

“So…this is creepy, right?” Laurel whispers.

“Oh my god, way creepy.” Roy shoots back, looking disgustedly at the walls, which were covered floor to ceiling with newspaper clippings.

Of, well them. Well not them, them. The arrow. They were occasionally in the corner of the photo. At least, Laurel was - or was that Sara? It was one of them. Roy had spent more time than he should have looking for mentions of Arsenal and had been overly offended when he found none.

“Honestly. For a stalker she hasn’t done her research, has she? I am an integral part of team arrow.” Roy says, trying to turn to look at Laurel. They are tied back to back in the middle of the stalker room and his tugging quickly turns to thrashing pointlessly around in his seat. Laurel closes her eyes and lets out a breath. It’s meant to be calming, but seen as Roy is managing to pull the rope further into her skin, it really isn’t.

“Will you please stop?!” She barks.

“At least I’m doing something.” He hisses back.

“Well if you continue doing something I will headbutt you until you pass out.”

Roy lets out a martyred sigh but thankfully stops.

Laurel is even more grateful because just then the door swings open, full action movie style, like she just kicked it in because she couldn’t be bothered to open it and in strolls Carrie Cutter.

Laurel and Roy both straighten up and put their best nonchalant super hero face on.

Carrie’s is better though. In fact, she looks deliriously happy. She should be pleased with herself, Laurel supposes. She did manage to take two superheroes hostage, though god knows why. To get Oliver’s attention probably, though the way Oliver has been with her lately he might just leave her here in the creepy stalker room to rot amongst the paper hearts. Laurel cranes her neck, making sure there isn’t some kind of wedding dress anywhere.

“Ok, Mrs Havisham, what do you want?” Laurel drawls. She tries to adjust her pose but because she’s tied up it looks like she just slumped down drunk. It’s not a good look but now she can’t sit back up properly again.

This was awful. Not that looking bad in front of your kidnapper was worst than being kidnapped in the first place. Obviously. Even if your kidnapper smells like cherries and lips that would make Angelina Jolie jealous.

“Straight to the point. Like that in a girl.” Carrie grins. Her hand trails lovingly over the newspaper clippings and her eyes light up. It would be attractive if it wasn’t, you know, super weird.

“Look, if your doing this to get the arrow’s attention it’s really not going to work.” Roy says. “I mean, all he does is sit in dark rooms, kinda like you i guess. He’s oblivious to literally everything. I bet - ”

“Shut up!” Carrie holds her hand up, dismissing him and he swallows the end of his sentence awkwardly.

She’s staring at Laurel now. Staring like she’s a mystery she can’t wait to solve, like she’s some beautiful statue, an unknown language.

“Now I get it.” She whispers.

She leans down close to Laurel, her arm reaching to drape over her shoulder. Her hand rests on Roy like he’s just a table. Laurel sees that to Carrie he doesn’t even exist in that moment. She tells herself the hammering in her chest is from fear, not anything to do with the lack of personal space between her and a beautiful woman. Because that would be insane and judging from the walls she was not the insane one in this room.

“Get what?” She asks, even though she should just headbutt her and leave. I mean, it would be easy. But somehow she can’t bring herself too. Carrie is burning bright. She’s red, and for once that doesn’t remind Laurel of blood. It reminds her of…passion. Intensity. Carrie’s hair is hanging long and it brushes against Laurel’s cheek. It’s pleasant. She wants to run her fingers through it.

“What…what’s happening? Is she doing something?” Roy asks, trying to turn and see.

They both ignore him, staring at each other.

“I caught you little birdy. I wanted to know.” Carrie is smiling. She’s swaying close and back again, like the constant push and pull of the see. Laurel feels that tug against her better judgement (though considering her past choices, that judgement is questionable.)

“Know what?” Laurel insists.

“What made the arrow want you.”

Roy lets out a scoff. “It’s not her he wants.” He mutters under his breath.

Carrie tucks Laurel’s hair behind her ear, her hand resting on her cheek. “I see it now. It’s because you are…I mean you’re hot.” She laughs, standing up and beginning to pace in front of Laurel. Roy seems to be resigned to his fate of not quite observer. “You know that right? Oh of course you know that. You’re like sickeningly hot. Like so hot that it’ just annoying, you know?”

“That is not the only reason the arrow keeps me around!” Laurel cries, blushing. She’s awfully offended…but also kind of flattered.

“Oh honey, no!” Carrie comes back to her and she genuinely looks upset that she’s offended her. “I know that. The fighting is obvious. I mean, boys secretly love a girl that could kick their ass. Isn’t that right?” She yells over Laurel’s shoulder at Roy. “Red is my colour, by the way.”

Carrie comes back to Laurel. It’s all rather chaotic behind those wild eyes. Suits her, in a way. “It’s just, I can do that. And I would have done anything for him. But I wasn’t the one he wanted. I never am.”

“Boo hoo.” Roy mutters and Laurel not so accidentally crashes her head back against his.

“So I found you. Over the course of my surveillance I began to notice you more and more. Hell, it got to the point where I thought about you more than I thought about him.”

“Oh my god.” Roy drawls.

“You ever hear of a canary in a coal mine?” Carrie asks and Laurel’s eyes widen impatiently for the explanation. “So miners would take caged canaries into the coal mines with them. If they knocked loose some pesky poisonous gases, the canary would die and the miners would know to get the hell outta dodge. You ever think that’s what you are? He ever send you in first?”

“You know he wouldn’t.” Laurel says.

Carrie sighs as if Laurel is a child and she’s telling her santa isn’t real.

“I wouldn’t.” She breathes, shaking her head. There are actual glistening tears in her eyes. What was even happening? Carrie suddenly gets to her knees in front of Laurel - not exactly an uncomfortable position but the intense staring is a bit weird.

“You could stay if you want.”

“We don’t want.” Roy put in.

“Not you!” Carrie barks. “You.” She smiles at Laurel, who smiles back. Carrie has an infectious smile. No wonder she was called cupid. She could get anyone under her spell.

She wanted to be wanted. Laurel got that. And she could be - Carrie could be so wanted, if she let herself. If she got help. Laurel…wanted to want her. Or wanted her to want her to want her. Or something.

“I can’t stay. Someone has to look after Roy, he’s really bad at directions.” Laurel laughs. “But I can come back.”

Carrie’s eyes widen in surprise. “Really?” She squeals. When Laurel nods she jumps up and claps her hands. “Seriously? I didn’t think you would!…Wait, is this a trick?”

“No. The arrow is being really shitty and mean and I want to get drunk with a cute girl.”

“I am so fun to get drunk with, oh my god.”

“I bet you are.” Laurel laughs. “But you can’t be, you know, like you are. I know why you are but…”

“No, i know.” Carrie says instantly, nodding. “I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be alone.”

Roy runs out the house like it’s on fire. Laurel Picks up a little plastic love heart on her way out and tucks it into her jacket. She was making the biggest mistake over her life and she was doing it gladly.

When she comes back later that night Carrie practically jumps into her arms, hugging her tightly. She had been convinced Laurel wouldn’t come back.

“Look!” she says, pulling Laurel gently into the room and gesturing flamboyantly to her walls, which now had a lot of empty spaces. “I took all the ones of the arrow down. I didn’t want you to think I was thinking about someone else.”

Laurel sees that the only ones left up there are pictures of her.

It isn’t much, but it’s a start.


	12. laurel/carrie + trapped together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurel and Carrie are trapped during a suicide squad mission

Laurel shivered and wrapped her arms round herself. She let out another frustrated sigh as the noise of gunfire continued outside.

She was trapped in some kind of barn, waiting for rescue, which in itself was mortifying. But to make matters worse she’s alone with Carrie.

Carrie was huddled on the floor and refusing to help find them any means of escape. She probably wanted Oliver to swoop in and save them. Laurel couldn’t think of anything worse.

She’d only agreed to come on this mission with the suicide squad to help Dig out. He was still on bad terms with Oliver and she wanted to make his life easier. It had made her life a million times harder.

Carrie had gotten a little…well, carried away. She’d barged in without thinking and they’d had to run for cover in this stupid barn.

“This is all your fault.” Laurel hisses at her.

From her seat on the floor Carrie rolls her eyes. “I might’ve gotten a little excited.”

“A little?” Laurel scoffs.

“Well you try being cooped up in a cell for weeks on end. Might make you a little stir crazy too, birdie girl.” Carrie lets out a little cough and winces.

Laurel slumps her shoulders, feeling guilty. She was tired, and scared and sore. Carrie was all those things too. But she’d worked so hard to get here and now Oliver was going to think she was weak, again.

“They shouldn’t have let you out.” She says, shaking her head and slumping down next to Carrie.

Carrie scowls at her. “And why did they let you come? To be self righteous and judgmental?”

They both cross their arms and huff, Laurel blushing slightly at the insult.

“Anyway, don’t you think I know all that?” Carrie asks quietly. Laurel doesn’t say anything. “I don’t want to be here. None of us do. Why do you think they call us the suicide squad, Laurel? It’s not because of the missions. It’s because none of us care if we come back.”

Laurel looks guiltily at her hands. “I thought…”

She looks at Carrie and shakes her head. She can’t think of anything to say. For the first time, huddled next to each other in the dark, Carrie looks scared. She looks young and Laurel feels deeply sorry for her.

“I guess it’s better than being in that cell.” Carrie continues. “You know they laugh at me? The guards - I hear them laughing. Like ‘Don’t get too close, she might fall in love with you’. Like I’m a joke.” She shrugs. She sounds so resigned to this, so used to it. No one should have to get used to that.

“I’m sorry.” Laurel says. Strangely enough she isn’t uncomfortable hearing this confession. She feels as if it were supposed to happen. Like Carrie had been waiting all this time for someone to listen to her. She knew exactly what that felt like. She wanted to do that for her.

“That’s not even the worst part. They want me to be able to fight - not to be zoned out on medication. They don’t want me to get better. They take my pain and they use it. They use me and abuse me and I’m meant to be grateful for it. How sick is that?”

“Do you want to get better?”

Carrie stares straight ahead. She isn’t thinking of the answer - the answer already lives inside of her. All of this lives inside her.

“Of course I do. It’s exhausting, being in my head. I don’t just stalk people you know. I have obsessive tendencies. Which means I over think, thoughts run round my head over and over and I can’t stop it. Why didn’t anyone want me? Why aren’t I normal? Why am I not grateful? Why do I hurt people?”

Laurel resists the urge to put an arm round her. She thinks how sad it is that someone so obsessed with love was so deprived of it.

“I’m always alone, everyday, with my darkness.” Carrie finishes quietly.

So am I, Laurel thinks. She knows that need. She knows what it was to fill yourself up with need. To pour poison into yourself to drown out your emptiness. She knows that sometimes you destroy yourself with need because you have nothing else.

She does reach out then, putting her arm around Carrie and pulling her closer.

“Careful there,” Carrie chuckles. “You might fall in love with me.”

“Shut up.” Laurel says, but she’s grinning.

Carrie’s breath hitches then and she winces again. Laurel sits up quickly, a frown of concern on her face. “What’s wrong? What…”

Then she sees - She moves Carrie’s jacket gently to see the bleeding wound in her shoulder. “Oh my god. Why didn’t you say anything?” She admonishes, applying pressure.

“Don’t worry. Red was always my colour, right?”

“Stop it.” Laurel snaps, tears springing to her eyes.

Carrie puts her hand over Laurel’s. “It’s fine. It’s ok, really. I don’t want to go back.”

“But you don’t want to die either, not really. Not you.” Laurel says, and she feels like she’s talking to herself. Her past self, the one buried somewhere inside her.

“No. I don’t. But I don’t have any better options right now.” Carrie grins manically.

“Yeah you do, stupid cupid. You’ve got me.”

Laurel walks out alone. She tells them all Carrie is dead and they are all too ready to believe her. ARGUS bemoan the loss of an asset more than a person, and she knows she has done the right thing in helping her.

In the weeks afterwards, Laurel wonders where Carrie is. If she really is getting help. If she’s hurt anyone. Laurel doesn’t know how to live with herself, in that limbo. She doubts herself then.

But one day, after coming home from a meeting, she finds what she was looking for. There is a large folded pink heart stuck to her door. Where the hell Carrie managed to find a valentines card at this time of year she had no idea. But she doesn’t think about that, because inside the card there are three very important things.

A photocopy of a prescription - a promise in itself. A postcard from Paris, of course. And a bright red lipstick kiss.

And Laurel knows it isn’t a goodbye.

It’s an invitation.


	13. laurel/lisa + hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> laurel/lisa: "I only took you as a hostage because you’re hella attractive"

Laurel strains against the zip ties that are cutting into her wrists. She’s trying not to make too much noise - which is easy really, considering she’s mostly just shuffling around in her chair getting absolutely nowhere. Ugh, she thinks. She can jump from buildings, fight world class assassins and yet she can’t get out of some freaking zip ties? Some kind of hero she was.

Because this was getting to be embarrassing she takes to looking around the room. It’s mostly in darkness, but she can tell they are in some sort of warehouse. Funny, it reminds her a little of verdant before they did it up. Actually…it looks exactly like verdant. It has the same layout. Was she in a foundry made by the same people? If so she could find her way out as soon as she got free.

Laurel sighs, and letting herself relax for that moment causes her to realize how tired she really is.

She lets her head droop back onto her shoulder. It’s just for a second, really. But in that second, she sees something. Something glittering in the darkness.

In the middle of this darkness, this abandoned, desolate place, there is something shining, placed exactly where it will catch the moonlight.

Laurel squints at it and realizes it is a clear crystal ashtray which looks unused.

She starts to notice all the other things then. A cheap looking gold necklace hanging from a window latch. A pink scarf draped over a wooden crate. Someone had taken the time to decorate this god forsaken place.

Despite the whole kidnapping thing, it strikes her as achingly sad and she is awash with pity somewhere deep inside her.

Then she is awash with something more like anger when she hears slow, deliberate heels clacking their way toward her.

The woman who appears in front of her is someone she has seen before. Not in person, of course. But she had seen Lisa’s picture - Cisco had shown her once, when he was getting excited about the star lab’s team’s various triumphs.

Laurel remembers wondering how someone so beautiful could be so deadly.

Now she sees it though. It’s in the way she moves, graceful like a cat stalking it’s prey. It’s those blue as ice eyes, bright and shining just like all her trinkets. Frightening in it’s beauty. You could be fooled by the rest of her, Laurel thinks, but not by those eyes. Those were old eyes, those were glaciers.

Laurel had read somewhere that the deepest circle of hell was not fire. It was ice.

Lisa Snart smiles widely at her like she hasn’t a care in the world.

“I see you’ve woken up.”

Laurel doesn’t say anything. She cannot see any trace of Lisa’s brother or - what had Cisco called him? heatwave. Somehow she thinks none of these delicate things would survive them. Was Lisa a delicate thing? Did she just want to survive those men?

“You drugged me.” Laurel grinds out.

Lisa lets out a tinkling little laugh. “Oh honey, don’t be mad. It was just a little sedative. Nothing major.”

“Why are you here, in my city? Hell, why am I here? What do you want?”

Lisa flips her long dark hair and perches prettily on the scarf draped crate, right across from Laurel. She smiles at her.

“You might not know this but i’m not exactly welcome in my city.”

Laurel attempts a shrug but the zip ties make moving difficult. Lisa sees it though, as she rolls her eyes.

“Gee, maybe it’s all those people you murdered.”

Lisa waves a dismissive hand. “Please. Like anyone in a casino at that time of night isn’t basically dead already. And besides…I did make them prettier.” She whispers with a teasing tone, but Laurel gets the sense it’s not a complete joke.

She remembers then, Lisa’s thing was gold. Golden glider. As if it appeared by itself, she sees it in Lisa’s belt.

“As for why you’re here…well, I like beautiful things.”

Laurel’s mouth drops open and she closes it hastily, but from the grin on Lisa’s face it did not go unnoticed.

Lisa stands up then, quick and purposeful and makes her wary toward her. Laurel can do nothing but watch her progress, her long fingers reaching out to touch Laurel’s cheek.

“That’s why I drugged you of course. Didn’t want to ruin that pretty face. Bruises are so ugly, after all. They’re just reminders, aren’t they?” She looks like she’s somewhere else, like she barely realizes what she’s saying. “Reminders of pain, of fighting. No. Much better to be beautiful, unbroken.”

“Is that what you are?” Laurel asks.

Lisa drops her hand quickly, squaring her shoulders in anger.

“No.” Laurel continues. “That’s why you collect all these pretty things. That’s why you want to paint the whole world gold. To get rid of all the hurt and leave them smooth, untouched.”

Lisa walks away from her, standing in the patch of moonlight, looking down at her little ashtray.

“Who knew you were smart too?” She says. “Cisco had a beautiful mind too, you know. That’s why he built me this.”

When she turns back her golden gun is pointed straight at Laurel - but Laurel sees those smooth hands shaking.

“Why did you leave your brother?” Laurel asks.

Because she wants to be free, Laurel thinks. She sees it without being told. Lisa wanted beauty. It wasn’t enough to be beautiful yourself when your world was so cruel. She wanted light.

Lisa lowers her gun slowly.

“Beautiful things weren’t made to speak.” She says a little accusingly. “They were made to sit and look pretty. So be quiet.”

Laurel wonders how many time Lisa had been told that. Her childish fascination with collecting shiny things and surrounding herself with them, like they were her only friends. And most likely they were. The sadness is back again.

Lisa stalks past her, a breath of flowers in the air behind her. Laurel hears the door close somewhere.

If she gets out of here, she’ll bring Lisa with her. She imagines what would happen if she doesn’t. Lisa sitting in this place, alone, surrounded by cold objects, her bones becoming coated with gold.

Despite what she’d done, Laurel thinks no one deserves that. Especially someone who saw beauty in the world, even when the moon was bright and the world was in darkness.

The moon hits the ashtray again, light glittering off Laurel’s skin.

Lisa had created that light in a darkness that was full and vast and inside of her. Anyone that could do that was worth saving.

Plus, she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at her like that.

Like she was a masterpiece.

Sure, it was a little creepy that Lisa wanted her in her little museum of pretty objects, like a magpie building a nest.

But no one had called her beautiful for a long time. She thought she’d lost it somewhere, under a mask.

But there was someone in the world that saw it.

Somehow, she felt she owed her the same thing.


	14. laurel/helena - undercover strippers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> laurel/helena - undercover at a strip club, and oops i have to give you a lapdance while briefing you on the mission so they don't get suspicious

“You don’t have to do this you know.” Oliver says for the millionth time.

Laurel rolls her eyes but it’s half hearted. The truth is she’d love to back out right then and there, but she couldn’t. Not with Helena staring and smirking at her like the fucking Cheshire cat.

“I’ve been in a strip club before, Ollie.” Laurel snaps, hoping her voice doesn’t betray how nervous she is. Oliver raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. Laurel doesn’t add that it was to arrest several petty thieves at the time. Which had been somewhere around one in the afternoon.

They were trying to find a memory stick that had a lot of valuable information on various local politicians, that, if it got out, would basically send the city into varying degrees of chaos and put those politicians and therefore the city into the hands of some even worse people.

The man that was currently in possession of that memory stick, which he kept on him at all times, was a frequent visitor to Vestal, where Helena had managed to get a job as a dancer in order to steal the memory stick. Which she would then pass to Laurel.

Laurel, of course, had not been the first choice. But since Oliver and Felicity had gotten engaged, the paparazzi had decided to take it upon themselves to follow him around again, so he was out. Dig was somewhere in the region of ‘The hellish, freezing butt crack of Russia’ helping Lyla. Thea was too young, though Laurel guessed they didn’t look too closely at id’s in vestal and Felicity, well, she was basically the worst liar in the world.

“Send Laurel in.” Helena had said when they were arguing about it. She’d said it so simply that she must have been thinking about it all along. When Laurel had glared at her, she’d seen the spark of a challenge in her. And it had ignited something in her that didn’t want to say no.

So here she was, getting ready to be surrounded by alcohol and a semi naked Helena. She didn’t know which one was going to cause the most problems.

Helena, she thinks later. She was real trouble. The dangerous kind, with a smile like a knife, that would cut you with a kiss. Laurel watches her because she can’t help it, and Helena watches her watching her, and she likes it. Their eyes meet somehow, through the dark and haze and noise. Then Laurel knows why she is here. She knew that look. It was full of the same heat and fury as when you hurt someone for the first time. It was blood and excess, it was Helena, that darkness she’d let ink over her bones.

When Helena takes their target into a room to the side, Laurel feels that anger. It was degrading. One day she’d come back to this place, her and Helena, in their masks, their armour, and they would burn it to the ground.

Laurel is left to wait, though she can barely force herself to sit still. She ends up doing the only thing she can, which is watch the dancers. It’s depressing, but it’s somehow intoxicating. It was a siren’s call to the desperate, like calling to like. All that darkness, those long slender hands reaching into your shadows and pulling you close. And that skin, that movement, like flickering flames, like falling stars. It had fascinated Laurel for as long as she could remember. A secret longing that she’d kept inside her. Tried to push down. But Helena had seen it and dared it to come to the surface.

Some time later, with very little ceremony, Helena gently takes her hand and pulls her along. Laurel had expected her to just give her the memory stick, it was easier enough in the darkness of the club.

But they go into a small room like she’d just done with someone else. Helena pushes Laurel down onto the plush black leather seat.

“What are you-”

“Shh…” Helena says, flicking a subtle glance upwards. Laurel sees the small red light of a camera. “They’re everywhere.” Helena explains. “So we have to do this the old fashioned way.”

Helena stalks slowly, deliberately and comes to stand between Laurel’s legs. All thoughts of their job forgotten, Laurel can only stare. Muscles hardened from fighting somehow made Helena more impressive, more bright and impossible. Her eyes were light, despite the dark room as she began to move.

It was easy to kill someone in a club like this, Helena had said. You get in close, you make them want to trust you, then you thrust the knife in. Laurel understands just what she meant now, as she leans forward, her hands either side of Laurel’s head.

Helena’s long hair brushes against her cheek and it awakens something, something old and ferocious. Laurel’s hand trembles as she reaches out slowly to trail her fingers over Helena’s flat stomach.

Helena presses further against her, soft skin and armor all at the same time. Her breasts pillow against Laurel’s, her lips inches away.

But before anything can happen, the knife.

Helena grins in that feral way of hers and Laurel feels her hand in her pocket. She’d slipped her the memory stick.

Helena brushes her nose playfully against Laurel’s cheek. “You stay any longer I’ll have to charge you extra sweetheart.” She whispers before abruptly pushing away from her.

Laurel gasps like she’d been underwater and stands up quickly. She wants to say something but no words come, like Helena had squeezed them all out of her.

She moves past Helena but before she can, Helena grabs her hand. Laurel looks back, meeting her eye, and when she does so there is no amusement, and no malice. Helena squeezes her hand with a tiny smile. Laurel squeezes back before rushing out.

There is a repeat performance. Helena hovers over her as she lays in bed before achingly slowly lowering her body onto Laurel’s, fitting them together like two halves of a puzzle. Laurel lets herself crash against that siren’s rock gladly.


	15. laurel/helena + double date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> laurel/helena + tommy and laurel being on a double date with helena and oliver and the girls are left alone

Laurel stares at her glass. There’s a single droplet running down the side. She watches it’s slow and steady progress down the glass. It’s only got one destination and there’s nothing that can stop it.

She watches the droplet of champagne drop onto the pristine white table cloth, stain spreading. She suddenly, wrenchingly, she feels like that drop. All the fizz, the shine gone out of it, moving forward in a single, straight direction with no deviation. She wonders if anything can stir her course, or if she will let herself continue to fall.

Suddenly a loud laugh causes her to jolt and remember where she is. The lights and sounds of the restaurant flood painfully and swiftly back into her and she sits up straight, hoping no one had noticed her zoning out.

Tommy clearly didn’t - it was his laugh that had brought her back. His and Oliver’s. How could a laugh she had known for as long as she could remember suddenly scare her? Those sounds were sounds that coated her childhood. And now it all seemed different. They were grown up, all three of them. She hunches her shoulders at that thought. It was supposed to be four of them. Sara was meant to be here. Laurel thinks about the girl that followed her around, refusing to listen to her bossy older sister but wanting to be with her constantly. Sara, ever since she was tiny, had been fearless. She always refused to hold Laurel’s hand when they crossed the road and she had never been hurt. Laurel wishes she was here to hold her hand now. To anchor her, to tell her she was being stupid, to not be afraid.

The trouble was Laurel didn’t really know what she was afraid of. She was sat in a bright, loud, public place with two of her oldest friends and suddenly…she was afraid. Afraid that here they were, again, after more than two decades, just like they had been when they were little. Just because Oliver had disappeared for a while there didn’t mean anything.

Well, there was one thing that was different.

Helena, Oliver’s date was sat across from her. She was also currently staring at her.

Laurel shifted in her seat uncomfortably and tried to pay attention to the boys. She had, after all, suggested this stupid double date for some ungodly reason. She should at least see it out.

“No you do remember this one. The one with the red car.” Oliver grinned at Tommy.

“Oliver, if you expect me to remember some altercation based on a red car then we’ll be here all night. Do you know how many fights I’ve had with trust fund douche bags who own red cars?” Tommy laughed.

“I thought you had a trust fund.” Helena chips in, a sweet smile on her face that Laurel knows is a hundred percent fake. Laurel can’t help but suppress a smile of her own.

“Yes.” Tommy says, never one to take offence. “But I’m not a douche bag. At least, not all the time.” He laughed.

Then Oliver and Tommy continue talking and Helena, as slow as can be, pulls her eyes away and trains them once again, steady and piercing, on Laurel. The light from the copious amount of candles in the room dances in those eyes, and their blue then seems lighter than any of those inconsequential flames.

Helena smiles again, but this time, it’s real. It changes her whole face - like something cracking open, like light pouring out. Laurel’s heart doesn’t do what she expects - it doesn’t flutter, it had been doing that before. It settles. Content, and calm, and steady as Helena’s gaze. She feels still. But not in the bad kind of way. Not in the way she’d felt stuck for years. Still in the everything is ok kind of way. In a way she can’t even remember feeling.

Helena moves subtly into the chair next to Laurel’s. Their bare arms graze each other softly.

Laurel leans back in her chair and stares right back at Helena. She had never met her before tonight, but she felt somehow that through the haze and the drink and the noise, that they saw each other.

Tommy stands up then. When he sees the girls sat so closely together he gives them a slightly confused look, but it doesn’t stay for long.

Oliver stands up too and Laurel realizes that they must have missed something.

She gives them a brief smile that she hopes is reassuring. She can see Helena out of the corner of her eye - She hasn’t bothered reassuring them of anything.

“We…ah, there’s a crisis.” Tommy holds up his phone. “At verdant. I’m so sorry babe.” He holds his hands out, his face creased in guilt.

Laurel feels the stomach swoop right out of her. But it isn’t so much disappointment in him leaving as it disappointment that someone, anyone she was dating couldn’t find a way to stay with her.

Oliver shuffles, uncomfortable. As Tommy steps round and gives Laurel a quick kiss, Oliver trails after him. He hovers uncomfortable for a moment. Laurel wishes Helena would put him out of his misery - well, wishes just a little bit, anyway.

“Uh…sorry.” He says, though he seems to be flicking between Helena and Laurel like she isn’t sure which one he’s more sorry to.

“It’s fine. Hey, so you were my ride here and I…” Helena shrugs as if she’s uncomfortable, but she leans into Laurel, like she’s letting her in on a secret. Laurel hides her grin behind her napkin.

“Oh, god, yeah - here-” Oliver hands over a wad of cash like it’s nothing, which, she supposes, to him it kind of is. She had been told by Tommy that Helena was rich too, so she knew she didn’t need the money. “For the cab. And…and the bill.”

He sways a little uncertainly again before shooting them that charming smile that used to work so well on Laurel before dashing out after Tommy.

Laurel sighs and turns back to the table, which is when she sees that Tommy had left money on the table for the bill already. She points to it, narrowing her eyes at Helena who shrugs.

“It’s not like he’ll miss it.” She grins, rolling the money up and putting it in her purse.

Laurel crosses her arms. “You don’t need money for the cab, do you?”

“Of course not, but he doesn’t know that.”

Laurel can’t help but laugh. “Does Oliver know you’re this…reckless?” Laurel asks, trying to hide the fact she’s rather impressed.

“I highly doubt Oliver really knows anything about anyone he sleeps with.” Helena retorts casually. “Does he know you? I mean, really?”

Laurel looks down at the table. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t think I ever really knew myself. And if he did know me then, that’s who he still sees.”

Helena reaches out and places two fingers very softly under Laurel’s chin and turns her face toward hers. “So, who are you really then? Who are you now?…who is the girl behind those beautiful eyes?” Helena whispers, searching her face, like Laurel is a mystery she can’t wait to solve.

No one had looked at her like that for so long. To Oliver and Tommy she was an open book, creased spine and folded edges, read too many times. She can’t help but want that look on Helena’s face, that hungry question that doesn’t need to be spoken. But she wants very much to answer it.

“That’s why people go on dates, isn’t it?” Laurel replies, clinging to that freedom, that newness that was pouring into her. “To find that stuff out?”

Helena smiles and Laurel places a hand on her wrist. “Well, we have the money for a date, thanks to Oliver.” She shrugs and they laugh, pressing their foreheads together.

“Come on.” Helena grins, pushing back and standing, holding her hand out to Laurel. “Oliver is so oblivious that he hasn’t remembered I brought my bike here.”

Laurel splutters. “You rode a motorbike, in that dress?”

Helena’s smile widens, Cheshire cat and inviting in the extreme. “You just hitch it up a little. I have learnt to do many, many things in a pretty dress and a good pair of heels. I can teach you, if you want. Ever ridden a motorbike?”

Laurel shakes her head as she jumps up to take Helena’s hand. The excitement inside of her is enough to make her shake.

“Then you just have one job.” Helena says, pressing her body against Laurel’s. “Hold on to me…tightly.”

And she does. She holds onto her like she doesn’t want to let her go. She thinks Sara would be proud of her. Laurel is actually rather proud of herself too.

Especially when, in the freezing cold that turns her nose pink, and the dark street with it’s clinging air, she kisses Helena, quickly and sweetly.

Helena, for once that evening, looks surprised for a moment. She even blushes, tucking her chin slightly.

They clasp their hands tightly together and carry on and for once Laurel doesn’t know where she’s going.

And she doesn’t want to know. She wants to be brave, and curious and she wants to be all of those things with Helena holding her hand.


	16. laurel/helena + mr and mrs smith au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mr and mrs smith au + laurel/helena

They said that life sucker punched you. Laurel, for her part, had always been of the mind that when that happened, you just punched life straight back.

But this, this wasn’t something she new how to fix. This…this was her entire world, shattered, in a single second. Like the earth had shifted beneath her.

Her wedding ring had only been on her finger for two years, but now it bit into her skin like teeth. The way the light caught it used to be like sunlight to her, and now it was blinding and bleaching and cruel.

Her wife - the person she was closest to had been lying to her their entire relationship.

But then again, she supposes. So had she. Lying ran in her veins. Lies were etched onto her bones. Lies lived on her tongue and fell out like water. She had just never thought she’d been lied to.

For years she had worked as a vigilante in starling city. They had built a network, a real organization. They were dedicated, and brave, and somehow against all odds, they had all found a way to have a life.

Laurel hadn’t even known it was possible for someone like her.

Until she had met Helena. Impossible Helena, broken but unyielding still. Beautiful and full up with grief, just like Laurel had been. But they had saw the best in one another. Laurel had watched Helena grow, move through the pain of her fiance dying. Helena had become happy, and safe and she had made Laurel feel that too. Helena had even been the one to propose, something which Laurel didn’t know if she’d even been capable of thinking about, after everything she had been through.

But they had been in love. Madly in love. Helena was warmth, and lazy Sunday mornings, and swapping shirts and bitter coffee. Coconut shampoo and star shaped pendants.

She hadn’t known what Laurel did for a living, not really. But she was ready to accept that a lawyer - team arrow’s front being Queen in corp and Laurel being the in house lawyer apparently representing them - had an unpredictable work schedule and would often need to be gone for days at a time. Helena didn’t ask too closely. They had agreed early on that work was work and they didn’t want to bring it into their marriage, young as it was.

If only they had, maybe Laurel would have known, would have seen.

She’d heard of the huntress, of course. Everyone had. She was a legend, by all accounts. They usually never followed leads on her - she might kill people, kill people for money - but usually they were rather unsavory people. As long as this huntress never crossed the line in team arrow’s city, they left her too it.

But this time was different. She had hurt someone in their city, she had let that violence into their home. And they couldn’t let her get away with that, no matter the target. If team arrow let one person get killed, they would let two, then three, then it would be as dark as it was in the beginning.

They had sent Laurel. Really she’d volunteered. The mobster the huntress had killed was someone Laurel had been trying to prosecute for years (sometimes she really did do some actual laywering)

And she’d seen her, bathed in the glow of the street lights. She hadn’t known, not at first. It had been the smallest thing, the way she cocked her head when she smiled.

And that was it. Everything was done.

Helena was the huntress.

She smashed out her fury against Helena’s skin. Her knuckles smacked into the cheek she’d once stroked. Blood burst from the lips she’d kissed. She’d had her safest place ripped away from her and she hated that it was partly her fault. Laurel wasn’t blameless. She hated that she wasn’t blameless.

“Why are you even angry?” Helena hissed as she got back up. “I thought you wanted to get this guy.”

“Yeah.” Laurel replies. Then she grabs that stupid, ugly vase that Helena had insisted on paying 50 bucks for, and hurls it at her wife. Helena doesn’t flinch, which makes Laurel even angrier. “In a jail cell, not with a bullet in his head!” She screams. “And I never liked that vase.”

Helena’s mouth drops open. “You said it complimented the colour scheme!”

“Well I lied!”

They run through the house, arms aching, legs sore, heart sick. They were hurling ever hurt, every slight, every omission, everything at each other. Everything they could think of. Every weapon. Love is the best weapon, after all. Laurel starts throwing things out there that she never knew she’d thought.

“I hate when your dad comes for Christmas, he always stares at me weirdly!”

“Well I hate how your mother constantly tries to rearrange my living room!”

“I lied when I told you the cat peed on the white rug, I threw pasta sauce all over it when you came home late on valentines day!”

“I wanted a dog anyway!”

She doesn’t know how it happens - which is a recurring theme in Laurel’s life as of late. One minute their killing each other. The next their kissing each other. But it isn’t pretty.

It’s dirty and mean. It’s nails down backs and pulling on hair. It’s slammed against walls and biting necks and pushing and squeezing. It’s bad, and it’s good. It’s nothing and it’s everything. It’s them and it’s two strangers.

When Laurel lies on the hard wood floor afterwards, panting and sweaty and tasting blood, she smells that smell again - coconut shampoo.

It’s then she realizes Helena is only half a stranger. She is both Helena and the huntress.

She decides, when Helena drapes an arm over her stomach as if they were lying in bed, that she wants to find out all about that other girl.

They have no clothes and everything’s on fire.

That’s how it ends. Over sized shirts and shivering legs and flames, everywhere.

Laurel did not belong to team arrow anymore. Helena had never belonged to anyone.

They decide they belong to each other. And that’s what keeps them going. That single decision in the smoke and ash, in the ruins of their past.

Just like last time.


	17. nyssara - come home

"I've missed you." Nyssa says from behind her. Sara closes her eyes like she can shut her feelings out. Guilt flooded her chest and weighted it down, but just for a moment.

Sara knows what it takes for Nyssa to admit her feelings. She knows what it did to her when she left. She sighs, but she can't bring herself to turn around and look at her.

Instead it's Nyssa who reaches out. For so long Sara had been coaxing small words, glances, gestures from her and now it was the other way around. Nyssa had come half way round the world to find her. She had wanted to bring her back.

Nyssa touches Sara's shoulder gently and turns her. Sara look up into her eyes, wide and anxious, and thinks maybe it's the softest thing she's ever done. She's more grateful for Nyssa in that moment than she could ever express.

"I'm glad you've come home." Nyssa smiles. 

And Sara knows then, more than she has ever known, that she was. Because home wasn't this ship full of strangers. It wasn't Nanda Parbat, sharp and dark and lost. It wasn't even Starling, a city that had forgotten her face, her true self.

No, home was here. 

Home was Nyssa. And she knew then that she would always return.


	18. nyssara - when words aren't enough

Nyssa isn't very good with words. She could wield a blade better than any man. She could cut to the quick with a single look. She knew single words that could destroy worlds. But when it came to using a lot of them, and using them to express feelings - well, that she couldn't do as easily.

Somehow all the words she knew weren't enough. Not with Sara. Sara was bright, and beautiful. It was like letting sunshine into the hollows and the darkness of the league. All the words Nyssa knew were dark words. War words. Whilst she understood the pain and the danger that now lived within Sara, and understood that that had, in some ways, brought them closer, that was not what she wanted to talk about now.

She didn't know how to express the other side. The hope Sara had brought to her life.

So she doesn't say a word. She waits until she cannot contain it anymore. Sara's laugh hits her, the thing that had made her love her, and she knows in a single second that that was the moment.

And so Nyssa kissed her. She's scared but Sara makes her brave. The feel of her hair, the bumps of her ribs, the scars on her arms, are all parts of Sara that she knows now, that she can feel under her fingers, and it's more than she could have dreamed of.

Sara kisses her back with a smile, and Nyssa knows sometimes no words are needed.


	19. laurel/felicity - you know you're safe with me

Felicity squeezes her eyes shut, tight as she can, like she can block out the world.

She was stronger than this. She had faced worse than a couple of thugs smashing every object in sight just because they could.

But she usually wasn’t so alone.

She thinks about the time here, in her house when men had taken her and her mother. She thinks she can still feel the cable wires digging into her wrists. She feels like she can’t breathe, just like when they had a bag over her head.

She’s sitting by the door in her bedroom, listening to people, ghosts, destroying her life. And she can’t bring herself to do anything about it.

There are no weapons in here, except her tablet, which she is clutching for dear life. She’s sent an alert to the foundry and to the team’s phones - she’d set up an alarm system after the last time this happened. She didn’t think she’d ever have to use it.

Felicity sits there trying to breathe properly wishing she kept a bat by her bed, trying to think about which team arrow member lived closer, who would come, but her brain was too panicked to think of anything but the smashing and destruction coming from down the hall.

And then, suddenly, there is a loud bang.

And nothing.

The sounds of her home being invaded, the sounds of her memories and possession and the secrets that lived in this house being violated, and taken from her - they all stop.

She reaches up to turn the door handle but her fingers hesitate, stopping just shy, floating in the air, shaking.

She jumps as there is a knock at the door and she scrambles away from it. She’s about to shout that she has a gun and that she’s a ninja and all manner of things to make them go away when a voice calls through the wood.

“Felicity? It’s me. It’s Laurel. It’s ok - I’m going to open the door now.”

And she does. The door swings open in a wide creaking arc - and there she is. Laurel clears the room quickly and then rushes over to Felicity, crouching down in front of her.

“You ok?” She asks, reaching out and placing a gentle hand on Felicity’s cheek. Her eyes are kind and concerned, looking her over for any kind of problem.

“Yeah - I’m just freaked out.” Felicity breathes, relaxing a little. She looks over Laurel’s shoulder, clutching her arm tightly as she does so. “Are they…?”

Laurel turns for a moment but doesn’t look. “They’ll be down long enough for the police to get here. In the mean time I think you should come and stay with me.”

Felicity glances to her then, seeing the sincerity on her face. “I was going to…I don’t know, do something. I was.”

“I know you were.” Laurel nods. “Felicity, I know you’re a badass. We all need help sometimes.” Laurel smiles.

She stands up and takes Felicity’s hand to pull her up. Laurel turns away from her, starting to scan the room for a bag and clothes for Felicity to take with her. Somewhere along the way she seems to notice Felicity isn’t doing anything and moves back to her.

“Hey.” She says, placing a hand on Felicity’s shoulder. “It’ll be ok.”

And feeling that hand, Felicity wants to believe her.

Felicity has never been in Laurel’s apartment, but she decides she wants to come back, under better circumstances that is. It’s warm and cozy and colourful. Somehow she sees through the bright glass glow and velvet cushions to the Laurel that used to exist, the Laurel still buried inside somewhere, under the loss and the scars. The girl that filled this place with her personality.

She lays on the sofa, crushing her face against a cushion and imagines Laurel picking it out, sliding her fingers over it’s softness.

“So the spare bed is all made up.” Laurel smiles coming back into the room. She’s holding two steaming cups of what smells like chamomile and she places one down in front of Felicity before sitting in the chair next to her, curling her feet up beneath her.

Felicity sits up and sips at the tea gratefully.

“Felicity…” Laurel stares into her cup for a moment before looking straight at her, like she’s trying to show her the truth of her words, to press her words into her and make them true and alive in her. “I want you to know that you’re safe with me. You always will be.”

Felicity nods.

And finally she lets herself feel it. Feel that safety, that care wrapping around her, enfolding her. She feels that concern sinking into her, travelling through her throat with the warm tea. She feels that safety pouring into her, tasting like chamomile and love.

In the later months this would be repeated many times. They would sit in these places, places that became theirs, their shared space, part of their routine, their closeness and they would know that they loved each other.

But for now Felicity and Laurel drink their tea. And then they sleep.


	20. laurel/nyssa -  not without you

The world was fire.

Smoke was burning Laurel’s eyes, choking her lungs. She imagines it settling there forever. Everything is burning. Everything is heat. She is suffocating, blackness clogging up her veins, her head.

She needs to get out. She needs to crawl and fight until she dies. But it seems so difficult. She’s so tired. She is choking and she wants it to stop. To lay down and know it will stop.

“Laurel!”

There is a voice. That is her name, she remembers. Like everything had floated away from her as dark spots edged into her vision.

She wonders who it is and why they are here. They shouldn’t be here, in flames. It was impossible.

And somewhere in the recesses of her mind, a thought comes to her. It must be Sara. Sara must have come for her. She must be dead and this must be hell and Sara was here.

No, that was wrong, Laurel thinks. Sara could not be in hell. This was wrong.

Laurel blinks a few times. She’s dizzy and the ceiling starts spinning but that must mean that she was alive.

“Laurel.” The voice calls again.

“Sara?” She does not know if she whispers it or thinks it. But that name, that most precious of words, must be a beacon. Because a face hovers above her then, like the tug of that thought, the tug of her heart must have pulled someone to her.

It is not Sara. She coughs as strong hands slide under her back and pull her up. It is not Sara, but she knows those hands and even though everything was dying, she was dying, she allows herself to feel safe just for a second.

“Laurel, we have to go.” Nyssa says, trying to pull her up.

Laurel’s body feels like its apart from her. She cannot force her legs to move. Everything is numb, like she is drunk, like she is heavy and sinking, like she is nothing.

“Just go.” She says. She doesn’t know if Nyssa even hears her over the lion’s roar of the flames.

“Not without you!” Nyssa cries. “Don’t you dare make me lose someone else that I love, Laurel Lance. Weakness does not become you.” Nyssa’s voice is hoarse and she coughs. From where she is cradled against her Laurel feels it, like it’s rattling her bones.

And she knows then that Nyssa is right, that they had to leave, because Sara was dead but Nyssa was alive, and she was here and she loved her and she was asking her to.

So she shrugs off her numbness. She breaks her bones like wings spreading out. She sobs and chokes until the cold night air hits her face, until oxygen punches her lungs back to life.

Nyssa doesn’t let go of her the entire way, nor the entire way home after that. Laurel doesn’t want her to.

“You should get some sleep.” Nyssa says. She’d watched Laurel drink what felt like an ocean of water and she had laid her down in clean sheets as gentle as if Laurel were a baby bird.

When Nyssa shifts to get up and leave the room, Laurel takes her hand, stilling her.

“Not without you.”


	21. laurel/helena - it doesn't have to be that way

“You have to go.” Laurel says, crossing her arms.

Her face flushes and her stomach drops even as she says it. This was not like her. It wasn’t kind, or fair, or nice or even remotely decent. But it was right, even if it didn’t feel that way.

Helena sits up on her elbows and Laurel glances away as the cover falls away from Helena, revealing her nakedness, the curves and edges of her that Laurel had consumed under the moon. Laurel had pressed herself into her, a woman’s body familiar and new to her all at the same time.

Helena, for her part, simply raises an eyebrow. Coolly, she throws the cover away and swings her legs out of the bed.

“Here it comes.” Helena drawls as if she had expected this all along. “The guilt trip.”

Laurel throws her arms down. Was she that predictable?

“We can’t do this,” Helena carries on in a sneer that earns her a sardonic look. “I’m a good superhero and your a big bully who murders people, blah blah blah blah blah.”

“You do murder people!” Laurel cries.

“Only the ones who deserve it!”

Laurel presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Last night was…”

She didn’t know how close they were until Helena, now at least partially clothed, gently takes her hands in hers. “Amazing? Hot?…totally, totally…hot.”

Yes, it had been those things, and more. But Laurel knew that just because something felt good didn’t mean it was good. Just because something settled you, something numbed the scratching inside of you, just because something stilled you and grounded you, did not mean i was good for you.

She didn’t need another poison. And especially not one with bright blue eyes that saw right through her.

“It was. But we’re on different teams.” Laurel says, but even as she says it she is knotting their fingers together even tighter.

“It doesn’t have to be that way.” Helena says, swaying into her slightly. Laurel thinks she’s nudging her heart in a direction it didn’t want to go. “And besides, just because we don’t work on the same team doesn’t mean we’re on opposite teams.”

Helena steps backwards, pulling on Laurel’s hands. “You know, you should take it as a compliment that I want to say. Normally after sex I have to leave them, sobbing, begging me to stay.” She grins as she jumps back onto the bed.

“And hear was me thinking that you just ate them, like a preying mantis.”

“Hmm, that comes later.” Helena laughs.

She jumps up then, grabbing Laurel once more and pulling her down roughly onto the bed, making it bounce. Laurel laughed and brushed her hair from her face.

Maybe it could be this way. When he had been looking down at Helena, sleeping in her bed, it had seemed so clear, the divide, the ocean between them and who they were. The masks that separated them.

But now she is lying back and Helena is looking down on her, her eyes gentle. Helena reaches up and brushes Laurel’s hair back.

Maybe this could be their team.


	22. laurel/felicity + misplaced jealousy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> misplaced jealousy on laurel's part

Laurel got jealous. She had learnt to accept that a long time ago. Her jealousy wasn’t that kind that rumbled deep inside. It was sharp, it was a knife, clean and cold and it knew exactly who and why.

The who and why of this particular wound was Oliver and Felicity. Because Oliver was putting his hands all over and she was letting him and Laurel’s hands were curled into fists at her sides, instead of in Felicity’s hair where they belonged.

She had been gravitating toward Felicity for months now, even without knowing it, like the currant pulling you along, and you with nothing to cling to.

And now she saw everything clearly. It wasn’t hazy and dreamy, like love in the movies. It was shockingly clear. She saw everything, the way you do when someones a part of you. She saw how Oliver and Felicity orbited each other like twin stars, and hoped to god they crashed and fell.

Laurel closed her eyes against. She saw those flickers of lights, those shapes behind her eyes, like she couldn’t escape the people in front of her.

She watches them walk away. She watches like everything is in slow motion and she can’t change it. She wants to charge and run straight into the danger, into them, she wants…she wants to badly to be in his place.

She wants to be golden, flooded in street light next to her.

And so when Felicity shakes and trembles next to her one night, and takes her hand, it’s like her heart stops. Like the world melts away, and she can look at her like she always wanted to.

And now she sees. Really sees, realizes how blind she had been. She sees that all the time she’d been watching Oliver with Felicity, She hadn’t seen Felicity drifting away from him. She hadn’t seen the tightness behind her smiles, or the way she sought Laurel out from under her eyelashes.

The world melts away and they stand next to one another, on the rooftop, on top of the world, amongst the stars, and nothing else matters.

All the sharpness and pain is gone, and everything is light, and everything is her.


	23. laurel/felicity + pining

Felicity is pining.

She is not a piner. She does not pine - in fact she flat out refuses to. But here she is, doing just that, despite all her efforts to the contrary.

Ok, so it isn’t like she’s wrapping herself in Laurel’s jacket and crying in a dark room - she isn’t there yet, though her fingers do skate over the leather that had worn into the shape of Laurel’s shoulders.

But she does catch herself staring. She does know when she enters a room. She does sigh a hell of a lot more now, and people are beginning to notice.

They just don’t seem to notice why - at least, Laurel doesn’t, thankfully. And Oliver wouldn’t notice something if it hit him in the face. But John notices, just like always.

Unfortunately this means he often gives her very pointed looks and nudges as well as the dreaded ‘tell her how you feel’ speeches. This hadn’t inclined her to do so. She was picking her moment - more like she was avoiding it all together.

She just didn’t want things to be awkward if it didn’t go well. Laurel could easily say she didn’t want a relationship at all, never mind with her.

John insisted that this wasn’t the case. He insisted he knew - like he intrinsically knew all of them so deeply and effortlessly - that Laurel felt the same way. But Felicity didn’t know, not just yet. Not for certain.

Sure, there were the many albeit brief touches - a shoulder squeeze when Felicity found their bad guy. Grabbing her hand when she was excited and not letting go. There was the smiles and the thank you’s that weren’t always there before, and not from anyone else. But that didn’t mean anything, not really.

No. For now Felicity was content to sit and pine and listen to Adele on repeat instead of sleeping properly. This also meant she was consuming unhealthy amounts of captain crunch and chocolate ice cream.

Felicity looked up from under her eyelashes, trying not to let them see. But if they didn’t want her to watch them on the salmon ladder why did they put it right in her eyeline? It wasn’t her fault if they were distracting her.

'They’ were Oliver and Laurel as he was teaching her to use the ladder. This meant crop tops. And sweating and grunting. It was filling her mind with images that were not helping her conquer her pining.

Laurel let go and landed with a thud. “This isn’t working.” She said grumpily, rolling her shoulders.

Oliver raised his eyebrows and sighed. He glanced up and caught Felicity’s eye - who looked away quickly as if that would disguise the fact she’d been watching.

“We’ll try again tomorrow.” He said to Laurel before heading toward the showers.

As Felicity turned to watch him leave, she didn’t notice Laurel moving toward her. She turned suddenly as Laurel perched on the desk beside her, her leg against Felicity’s arm. Felicity froze, not daring to move.

She looks up at Laurel, her face flushed and her hair messy and she feels a sharp pang of affection for her. Felicity smiled kindly.

“Hi.” She breathes gently.

Laurel cocks her head. “Hi.” She replies, a little more sardonically. “There’s no way you missed the abysmal failure that was me trying to use that stupid salmon ladder.”

Felicity can’t help but chuckle. “It was a little distracting.” She admits. “But you’ll get there.”

Laurel sighs and stares at the ladder forlornly. “It’s just…that's the last thing. It feels like the last thing. When I do that then…i’ll belong here. I know that sounds stupid. It’s just, its been looming over me and I guess I’ve just made it this big thing in my head, you know?”

She looks down at Felicity searchingly, wanting her to understand. And she does. Felicity understands instinctively. Sometimes small things took on a huge significance. They became a symbol for something else. And this was Laurel’s.

Felicity wants her to know she belongs. She wants her to know more than she ever wanted anything. She wants to tell her that this is their home and they both belong in it together. They are part of the bones of this place.

But she bites her lip and says instead, “I’ll help you.”

And she does. She stands in front of the ladder watching Laurel and urging her on encouragingly every time she falls. And somehow, after what feels like forever, Laurel does it. She moves on bar up on the salmon ladder. And that’s enough.

She lets go laughing loudly and jumps wildly, grabbing onto Felicity and pulling her toward her. “We did it!”

“No, you did it! I knew you could. You just needed someone to believe in you.” Felicity grins, linking their hands together.

Laurel looks in her eyes and there’s something, some emotion swimming in their that Felicity clings too and wants to know down in her bones.

Laurel raises their entwined hands and kisses Felicity’s fingers. Gently, slowly.

Felicity gasps quietly.

“Sorry. I - well I've been trying to work out how - ” Laurel stammers, mistaking her gasp for something bad.

Felicity shakes her head quickly. “Sentence fragments is my job.” She laughs, nudging Laurel with her hip. This seems to jolt Laurel out of her nerves and she smiles a little hesitantly.

Felicity gathers her courage and steps closer to her, they are right in each others orbit, right next to one another like their hearts are trying to reach each other.

Felicity presses her head against Laurel’s and they both let out a shaky, relieved breath.

“Do you want to go to go get a burger?” She asks jokingly.

“Oh my god yes!” Laurel cries. “I thought you’d never ask. God knows I was too scared too.”

Felicity kisses her cheek quickly, her own blush mirrored on Laurel’s cheek.

They hold hands all the way there. Neither of them want to let go.

Felicity tried to make a mental note to tell John he was right. She should have done this months ago - because it turned out whilst she was pining, so was Laurel.

But now neither of them had to do that. Not ever again.


	24. nyssara - you fell asleep

Sara is always dragged kicking and screaming from sleep. She always finds herself choking back to life, every time she opens her eyes. Sometimes she thinks she can still feel salt water in her lungs, taste it on her tongue.

This is no exception. Not tonight, not any night, not ever at night. That’s when it’s the worst, the nightmares, the memories.

She blinks and breathes and hurts her way into waking, pushing down dizziness until she can roll over, the sheets tangled in her legs.

She sees Nyssa sitting at her door, twirling a dagger deftly in her hand. Sara sees little nicks and bite marks from where she had thrown it over and over at the wall. Nyssa was a big fan of the practice makes perfect mentality, even though she had basically been practicing fighting since before she could talk. Sara always joked that she was probably doing roundhouse kicks in the womb.

Sara had been trying to master her facial expressions but she is too tired. She raises her eyebrows at Nyssa who finally notices she’s awake and smiles gently, placing her dagger on the floor next to her.

Sara pushes up on her elbow and smiles back. “What are you doing here?”

Nyssa cocks her head to the side like the doesn’t understand the question. “We were talking last night. You fell asleep.” She says plainly, as if the answer were obvious.

Sara widens her eyes and shakes her head, waiting for an explanation.

Nyssa sighs and stands up. Sara doesn’t know how she manages to be so graceful, even now. “You have bad dreams. You don’t like sleeping and you especially do not like waking up.” She says. Her voice is tight and controlled but she doesn’t look at Sara, and that is how Sara understands that this is a confession, a secret and a kindness and she is cripplingly grateful. “I thought perhaps that having someone here might make it easier for you.”

Sara’s smile widens then, when Nyssa finally dares to look up, and seeing that she relaxes.

Sara lifts her hand for Nyssa to take and she does so gratefully.

“Not just someone. You.” Sara says. Nyssa’s eyes widen for a moment before she looks at her feet again, unable to hide how she’s biting her lip.

“I can…stay, if you’d like.” She says.

Sara nods, feeling that swell in her chest, knowing this is the thing she wants most in the world right then.

“Yes…I fell asleep during a conversation…so what we’re we talking about?”

Nyssa sits next to her on the bed and they huddle against one another. And they talk.


	25. laurel/felicity + 'we hooked up last night and it turns out you're my child's new teacher'

This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. Because these kind of things are in rom coms, not real life.

Felicity felt a blush creeping over her cheeks as she glanced at the woman across the classroom. Yep, that was definitely her.

Over the screaming, the running and bobbing of children, past the designer handbags and the early morning yawns of mothers and fathers, was the woman Felicity had slept with last night.

What the hell.

Felicity sighed. Laurel had the same bright eyes she had had the night before, over glasses of wine. She looked just as good in t shirt and jeans than in the black dress Felicity had taken off her.

Felicity sighed again, but it must have been a lot louder than she’d realized as her class room assistant Curtis grinned at her.

“First day is always the hardest. Just show them who’s boss.”

Felicity tried to smile reassuringly, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Who,” she quipped, “The kids or the parents?”

Curtis laughed. Glancing around the room he seemed to remember the texts she had rapid fired at him last night. “Hey, you promised me details about your date last night.”

Oh, she thinks, you will definitely be hearing about that.

She couldn’t put it off any longer. She, as the new teacher, had to greet the class and the parents - some bizarre ritual, as if they could determine her worth as a teacher by staring her down at this ungodly hour of the morning. She didn’t know the correct thing to say to convince these people she was safe for them to foist their offspring onto for six hours, but she was pretty sure she shouldn’t say anything about sleeping with the woman across the room last night.

So she sucked in a breath, put on her best smile, and stepped up in front of the white board.

The moment she began introducing herself she felt those eyes on her. She imagined she could feel that single, shifting moment of recognition, but she kept her eyes away from Laurel. It took all her concentration, but she did it.

When she began talking, looking out at the faces she’d be teaching all year, Felicity began to relax. Teaching was something she loved, and nothing was going to stop her from doing that. Not even the memory of Laurel’s hands ghosting over her spine.

When she seemed to have passed the test and the parents finally began filing out, Felicity tried to duck through the crowd and look busy by her desk - not easy considering term had started about a minute ago.

She had thought that Laurel would have escaped with the parents, like Felicity wanted to, but of course, a shadow falls across her desk and there is an uncomfortable cough for attention.

Bracing herself, Felicity looked up, putting her papers down and only now noticing she’d been holding them upside down. Laurel sees this and a small smile tugs at her lips.

Their eyes finally meet, and Laurel smiles that wide shining star of a smile, and it feels exactly like it did last night. Felicity never normally did anything like what she’d done the night before, but this woman was magnetic.

“Hi.” Laurel breathes.

“I had no idea.” Felicity bursts. “I mean, you never said anything - not that you have to, you barely know me - and I understand I guess I mean a lot of people would -”

“Felicity!” Laurel hisses, but she’s sporting an amused smile and shaking her head. “It’s ok. I didn’t put it together when you said you were starting to teach today. And I would have told you…but I’ve had bad reactions before…”

She trails off. None of it really needs to be said. They smile at each other and the awkwardness drips away.

Laurel nods and turns to go, but before she does she says “So, we’ll be seeing each other. Around, I mean.”

Felicity nods and smiles. She watches Laurel kiss a small light haired boy on the head before she leaves.

And they do see each other. Eventually the safety scissors and glitter are a little too much to deal with and they go on another date. Laurel tells her about Finn, her son. Felicity teaches him, and she knows he’s as bright and kind as his mother.

Thankfully Finn seems to like her and doesn’t think it’s too weird when ‘Miss Smoak’ comes to the mall or the park with them on weekends.

In fact, he says, it would be fine if she moved in with them. She could help him with his homework.

So one day, a year or so after that one crazy night, Felicity wakes up in a new bed, with a woman who loves her, with a son they both love. And she is so glad she did something so insane, something that had never happened before.

She is so glad that sometimes, just sometimes, these things can happen. If you let them.


	26. laurel/mckenna + "wanna bet?"

“I can make him talk.” Mckenna crossed her arms and scowled through the glass at their so far totally mute suspect. Laurel is almost surprised he doesn’t feel the heat of that look and stare right back at them. 

If this was her other job - her night time shadow job - this lowlife drug smuggler would already be spilling his guts by now. Spilling his blood, at least. She would have howled him into submission.

But, more and more, that was becoming increasingly unsatisfying to Laurel, especially when compared to this. Research, learning what made suspects tick, poking tender wounds with her words. Digging her hooks in, knowing her own skill, her own mind. She might have been a vigilante, but Laurel was also a laywer. A damn good one. It was good to remember that sometimes. Good to put on her other skin. Good for people to know her real name.

“Wanna bet?”

She smirks at Mckenna’s raised eyebrows.She doesn’t know where the suggestion came from. Maybe she wanted to see what Mckenna would do. She had stood across from her in court more than once, fired questions at that composed, perfect, furious face. She is floored in the best way when Mckenna smiles brightly in answer.

They try everything, taking it in turns. They bargain, cajole, intimidate, reason - but he doesn’t budge. But it is not tiring. Laurel likes watching Mckenna work. There is a grace to it, a confidence.

They had known each other for a while now. Or rather Oliver had known them both. She always thought of the court house as a little like high school. Everyone knew each others business, everyone knew who to trust and who not to, who was going to make it and who wasn’t. There were factions and rules. But not so much for Mckenna - because everybody seemed to love her. Not in the way they loved Laurel - the winner, the over achiever, tight smiles that belied sharp tongues. They were half afraid of her and half in love with her. Mckenna, not just as a cop, was darker, cooler. Everyone wanted to impress her. And now Laurel knows why. She too feels that magnetic pull.

She wonders what Mckenna would make of her night job. Maybe they sought the same thrills. Both of them dodged bullets on both sides of the law.

Mckenna wins the bet and gets the confession. Laurel pays for dinner. She doesn’t mind in the least.

They laugh about things that Laurel had not let herself think about for a long time. Pranks that Tommy had been arrested for - sometimes by Mckenna herself - stupid things Oliver had said whilst trying to be cool. Laurel likes not having to explain everything. It’s easy. Things had stopped feeling easy a long time ago. It’s even easier when Mckenna pointedly orders two non alcoholic drinks and doesn’t say a word about it.

They start to do this a lot. Soon the bets stop and they just make plans, go dutch. Soon the plans stop and it’s a just a tradition.

When it comes to the time for Laurel to tell Mckenna about the canary - after the kissing and before the i love you’s, though not too long - she says, in a scared voice, “You’ll hate me when I tell you.” She had felt the scar on Mckenna’s skin from her last vigilante encounter.

“Wanna bet?” Mckenna asks.

It is a bet that Laurel is very happy to lose.


	27. laurel/helena + come over here and make me

“Come over here and make me.”

Helena’s words echoed back to Laurel. It had become a mantra, a fury that followed her, a tapping at the window.

She thinks about the light that had streamed down on Helena from the broken window. The devil’s halo. It lit her up like a ghost, a hellion. 

“Let him go!”

“Make me.”

Make me, make me, make me.

Laurel wants to make her. It’s an itch that won’t go away.

She wants to shove her hard against the wall. She wants nails and teeth and hair in her hands. She wants to force Helena to look at her. Force her to her knees. Make her look up into darkness. The darkness that lived behind her eyes. Make her see that sharp gold, the amber swill that encased her like a dead fly. Make her see the pills floating around in there, churning and dissolving her guts. Make Helena look at that and see if she shudders. See if she turns away.

Make me, make me, make me.

It comes to her on moonbeams like a nightmare. It sweats and heaves on top of her. Make me, make me.

She wants to hunt the huntress. She too was a bird of prey. She wants to feel her in her claws. Laurel wants to sing her warning cry, to scream at her, to see if she feels it rattle her bleach white bones.

Somehow Laurel imagines she won’t. Like Helena will walk through the glass and chaos that sliced up the air around her, walk right up to Laurel and stay with her.

One day, she’s gonna make her.


	28. laurel/mari + kiss me

The wind in her hair felt good. It felt clean, way up here on the rooftops of star city. Laurel looked down upon her city, blinking and glimmering and always moving. She felt as if she were the only still point in all the world. That was her. The guardian at the gates, keeping watch, up here where only the birds could reach.

Well, not just the birds, not just her. There were more animals, more creatures in this world than any of the tiny specks down there knew. She wonders how Mari will come up to meet her. Fly like a bird? Climb like a jungle cat? 

“It’s cold as balls up here.” 

Or just use the stairs like a normal person, apparently.

Laurel smiled and shook her head, turning to see Mari emerging from the roof entrance, the metal doors clanging behind her. The lights from the buildings around them glowed behind her, like a halo.

“Hey to you too.” Laurel laughs, walking toward her.

Despite her opening line, Mari didn’t actually seem all that effected by the crisp, cold night air. She always seemed to fit effortlessly into the spaces around her, entirely a self apart, not being buffeted or changed or dragged down by anything, not even the wind. Laurel knew about how hard it was to get to such a place.

“Not that I’m not glad and all, to be freezing to death on a rooftop with you, but wanna tell me why we’re here?” Mari asked.

Laurel sighed. Now it came down to it. The thing she was still learning to do, the thing she hated to do and longed to do always. 

“I need your help.” She said.

 

There is a certain darkness that pervades every place. Dirt and blood and bones carve out its roads and its maps. Star city was no exception. If anything, it was the worst place of them all. Gomorrah, Pandemonium, and the emerald city all rolled into one, with its preachers and its demons and its wizards. Laurel loved this city, and she hated it too. It had helped to defile her and it had helped to shape her. Its street signs and its noises were carved into her bones. She felt as protective as a mother, and devoted as a child. And for this reason, she kept trying and trying to save it. Just like her, this city didn’t know when to ask for help.

All power exists in a vacuum and since the downfall of Damien Darkh, more and more low time crooks and criminals were trying to take his crown. They had all thought that once Darkh was gone things would get better - but team arrow were now trying to contain the fall out. It wasn’t going particularly well. Since her near death experience Oliver had been especially reluctant - even more so than usual, if that were possible - to let Laurel take what he deemed ‘unnecessary risks’. To which she had replied that to her they seemed perfectly fucking necessary, thank you very much.

One of this risks included breaking into a shipping warehouse and taking down the rising star, golden son, dickfaced heir to the Maldoza crime family. Laurel was well acquainted with this family, who’s belief that they were essentially the real life Soprano’s had resulted in a lot of work in her regular day job as ADA. But there were somethings even the law couldn’t handle. And some things team arrow didn’t want to handle, since they had had a team vote not to stage an all out attack on the mobsters hunkering down in this warehouse, waiting for their latest drug shipment to come into port. 

Laurel had decided to ignore the team vote - but it’s not like they actually said she couldn’t come here on her own. And she wasn’t alone, was she? Because Mari brought with her the heart of a lioness and the strength of one too and she had not balked at Laurel’s request. If anything she seemed rather enthusiastic about it.

“I’ve been dealing with similar low lives, down in my neck of the woods.” She explained at she and Laurel snuck around the dock yard outside of the warehouse. “If we can disrupt the flow of drugs into your city, chances are some of the gangs in mine will suffer too. It’s a huge spiderweb, this network, one i fully intend on stomping into oblivion.”

Laurel couldn’t agree more.

 

Whenever Laurel had seen Oliver fight, there was a roughness to it. He had been molded and cobbled together in the dirt and the loneliness of an island with no mercy. His scars and ripped edges meant he had been sewn back together from broken parts and Laurel saw it when he moved. He was strong, and quick, but he was angry and bloody and straining against himself to do damage. 

Laurel and Mari were entirely different creatures. Laurel moved like Nyssa, like Ted, like her sister, like all the people she had known. Laurel moved like the sharpness of words, like whiskey chasers, she moved like she couldn’t let herself stay still for too long. She moved like a bird. She screamed like a warrior throwing herself against an army.

Mari was all confidence and grace. She was, after all, full of not just her own life and spirit, but the life and spirit of animals too. She was impossible, but it wasn’t just her necklace. Laurel knew some of what she had faced and she knew that Mari had fought through the wilderness of her life and had emerged on the other side to become a hero. She had taught herself, had made her own choices. Laurel saw this in her. She knew the ansansi totem had chosen the right person as she heard Mari’s lion roar against her own canary cry, and they howled together, like they were part of the same pack, the same animal, the same army.

 

And that is how Laurel knows she must ask her for one more thing. One more favour. Once the fighting is done and she takes Mari to the airport, she imagines she wears that totem, imagines strength welling in her. Mari pressed their hands together in farewell, but Laurel had tugged her back, like she didn’t want to let go of her.

“I’m coming with you.” She said. And once she started she couldn’t stop. She tells Mari everything. 

“Are you sure? I don’t know if you’re going to like Detroit anymore than you like it here. This is your city, Laurel. It needs you more than anyone.” Mari pressed her fingers into Laurel’s hand tightly.

“I love this city. But I need to find out who I am without it. You of all people should understand that.”

Mari nodded. She’d gone all the way to africa, to her roots and her past to find out who she was. Whilst Laurel didn’t need to go that far, Mari accepted her choice. She was all about choice. The totem had chosen her over her sister because she wanted to protect innocents, because she had chosen light and heroism and goodness. Laurel had done that too, but this city still rejected her, still pushed her own like a foreign object, the swelling open wound that would never heal. Laurel would come back, she always would. But for now she wanted to feel still again, to breath different cleaner air. She wanted to look at a new skyline. She could imagine it all with this girl beside her. And from the way Mari had always looked at her, she thinks it’s the same for her too.

“Kiss me.” She says quietly. 

Mari blinks in surprise, but only for a moment. Laurel had voiced what they both kept secret as if it were fact and always had been. Mari smiled.

“And then I’ll be sure.” Laurel adds.

“Better make it a good one then.” Mari quips. “Lucky for you I am an excellent kisser.”

She stepped forward, their bodies pressing against each other. Laurel felt that deep down twist of excitement in her stomach as Mari leaned forward. Their hands were still entwined as she pressed her lips against Laurel’s. Laurel can feel their mouths start to smile against one another.

And she is sure. She follows Mari and looks down at her city from the plane window, truly a bird, truly and finally flying away for the first time, the trace of a kiss on her lips, the signal of change as she disappears into the night.


End file.
